An Escape Artist Named Leonidas the...Yorkshire Terrier?

I have a dear friend who works full time as an RN and goes to school full time to become a Nurse Practitioner. She called me up a few weeks back sobbing because, between her school and work schedules she didn't feel she was giving an adequate amount of time and attention to her two Yorkie boys Leonidas (Leo) and Sampson (Sammy).

I told her to bring the pups down to my house and they could stay with me until her schedule settles down a bit. Our dogs know each other, I have a big yard with a doggy door so there were no problems.

She flew down with the boys last Thursday. Friday morning I went off to a morning inspection and then stopped back off at my house on the way to the office to check on the dogs. Everything was fine. When I got home after work on Friday evening Sammy was happy to see me but Leo was no where to be found.

I checked the back yard, under every piece of furniture and in every possible hiding place I could think of. Leo was gone!

I panicked.

I knew that even though Leo was chipped, he didn't have a collar and tags on him. That was something I had planned to do over the weekend. I went online and put him on a "lost pet" page online. I then drove and walked my neighborhood looking for this tiny 4.5 pound Yorkie in the dark.

I went to bed that night terrified that I might not see this little baby again. I was even more terrified to have to tell his mom I lost him less than 24 hours after she entrusted him to me!

Saturday morning my phone rang at 7:00am. I leapt out of bed to answer it. It was one of my neighbors, 4 doors down named Alicia, telling me that she had Leo. She had posted finding him on a Facebook page, and someone who had seen my listing the night before put 2 and 2 together and told her to call me. I was elated! I went straight down to get the little guy who had spent Friday evening playing with Alicia's kids and eating the roast beef they fed him.

Saturday after lunch I went over to Petco to get new tags for Sammy & Leo. As I was standing in front of the engraving machine watching Leo's tag being made my phone rang. I picked it up...

"Hi Kerry, it's Alicia again. Leo's back! He's playing with the kids right now and they're feeding him ham this time!"

I was floored! I sheepishly went back down to my neighbors house to collect the little escape artist. Needless to say I went through my back yard and blocked the one space that Leo could have squeezed through.

I'm thinking about renaming him Houdini.